Immigrants Highland Annex Cemetery

The Highland Annex Cemetery, better known as the Immigrants, Greek or Polish Cemetery, is located on Fowlers Lane in Ipswich. Take Town Farm Road just past the Locust Grove Cemetery, which will be on your immediate left, and turn right in about 1/4 mile on Fowler’s Lane. The small cemetery is a short distance straight ahead. From there the road curves left, and ends at the animal shelter and water processing plant. View at Google Maps.

Most of those buried in this cemetery are of Greek or Polish descent, and came to Ipswich to work in the mills

This cemetery was used for the burial of immigrants to the town, from about 1913 until about 1939. Most came to Ipswich to work at the Ipswich Mills and the Brown Milll (on Brownville Ave.)

The grounds are about 100’ wide by 275’ deep. There is a small parking spot at the entrance to the grounds.

A couple of paths lead from the far end of the cemetery into the woods, connecting to a steep power line trail from the water treatment plant to the crest of town hill. The Daniel Boone Park, the Down Memorial park, Baker’s Pond and the water tank are at the top of the hill, and a trail from there leads to the main Highland Cemetery.

In the mid-Twentieth Century, a small ski slope with a rope tow operated here, but no signs of it remain. Near this path is an area that was known by children half a century ago as Second Sands.

Many of the Polish and Greek immigrants who arrived in Ipswich to work in the mills are buried at the Highland Annex Cemetery. Photo from the 1913 Ipswich Mills strike. Aerial view of the Immigrant cemetery on Fowlers Lane in Ipswich

The entrance sign at the cemetery informs us that a young Greek woman, Nicoletta Pantelopoulou (Νικολεττα Παντελοπουλος) who was killed by police bullets during the Ipswich Mills strike of 1913, is buried here. (Her last name is sometimes spelled Pantelopoulos.)

Ipswich is accessed by either Routes 133 and Route 1A. This cemetery is located 1 mile north of downtown Ipswich. Take Town Farm Road to the right. As you bear right onto Town Farm Road you will pass the Locust Grove Cemetery on your immediate left. Continue a ¼ mile and take a right on Fowler’s Lane. The road pretty much ends at the cemetery, where it turns to dirt. There is space for a few cars to park, and there is no traffic here.

Immigrant’s Highland Annex Cemetery

produced by Bruce Laing

Explanation of terms in burial records, below:

Entries are alphabetical. NEE refers to maiden names. “WPA records from 1930” were taken from Works Progress Administration (WPA) typed 3×5 index cards, originally prepared in 1935. (These WPA records are not yet included in this list. When included: in some cases these WPA entries have dropped a word or two, due to software errors.

Sources and limitations of data:

We had a real time of it, trying to decipher some of these stones, and the translation issues were daunting. Our team included Polish and Greek speakers, but the old carvings were still hard to get, at times. Field observations were completed in 2005. The field observations were checked against the WPA records from 1935, adding that information to fill in the blanks. These records include all readable stones from 2004 and all the WPA records from 1935. Occasionally stones are found and last names are unknown, in which case the other information on the stone is not included in this listing. As noted above, in some cases, a few words of the WPA inscriptions were dropped from these records when I translated the data from Microsoft Access into Microsoft RTF files in order to upload to the web. Other errors, inaccuracies, and omissions may exist. These records have not been checked against the Vital Records kept by the town, which are not sorted by cemetery in any event, but are another good source of data, along with other archives of family genealogies you can investigate by contacting people at these other links.